Shaharzad Akbar on Afghanistan after Democracy

02/01/23 • 42 min

Guests featured in this episode:

Shaharzad Akbar, one of the most prominent among the Afghan democratic opposition voices in exile. She was born in Afghanistan, lived with her family as a refugee in Pakistan during the first Taliban regime for some years and she's the first Afghan woman to earn a postgraduate degree at Oxford University in 2011.

She was later Country Director for the Open Society Afghanistan, a nonprofit organization supporting civil society and media, focusing on human rights and peace building. Shaharzad also worked as Senior Advisor to the Afghan President on high development councils and was Chair of the country's Independent Human Rights Commission, a position that she held until early 2022.

In 2021, she was awarded the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law. Most recently, she was an Open Society Network Academic Fellow in Human Rights at Chatham House and is currently at Wolfson College, Oxford building a new international NGO to support human rights in Afghanistan.

Glossary:

What is the Taliban?

(00:47 or p.1 in the transcript)

Taliban, Pashto Ṭālebān (“Students”), also spelled Taleban is a political and religious faction and militia that came to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. Following the Soviet Union’s 1989 withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban — whose name refers to the Islamic religious students who formed the group’s main recruits — arose as a popular reaction to the chaos that gripped the country. In 1994–95, under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban extended its control in Afghanistan from a single city to more than half the country, and in 1996 it captured Kabul and instituted a strict Islamic regime. By 1999, the

Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan but failed to win international recognition of its regime because of its harsh social policies — which included the almost complete removal of women from public life — and its role as a haven for Islamic extremists. Among these extremists was Osama bin Laden, the expatriate Saudi Arabian leader of Al-Qaeda, a network of Islamic militants that had engaged in numerous acts of terrorism. The Taliban’s refusal to extradite bin Laden to the U.S. following the September 11 attacks in 2001 prompted the U.S. to attack Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, driving the former from power and sending the leaders of both groups into hiding. source

What is Loya Jirga?

(9:13 or p.3 in the transcript)

The term “Loya Jirga” is a combination of two words from one of Afghanistan's national languages, Pashto, "Loya" meaning grand or big, and "Jirga" meaning council, assembly, or meeting. The institution of Loya Jirga evolved from the institution of Jirga, which is usually a council of elders in Afghanistan's tribal groups - particularly the Pashtuns - to settle disputes and deal with other day-to-day problems of living. Loya Jirga is a political institution unique to Afghanistan. It was the highest consultative body with broad representation and has been used to decide upon the matters of national importance, such as declarations of war or adopting treaties of peace, selection of a new ruler or adopting a new constitution, approving reforms and all important foreign policy decisions since the mid-18th century. In short, the forum represents the general will of the Afghan people. source

Who are the Mujahideen?

(11:49 or p.3 in the transcript)

Mujahideen or Mujahidin is the plural form of the Arabic term mujahid, who is a person who wages jihad. According to doctrinal and historical applications of Islamic law, jihad indicates military action for the defense or expansion of Islam. While in the course of Islamic history the term mujahidin has been used by different groups to identify their struggles to defend Islam, the term gained global currency in the latter decades of the twentieth century after the leftist coup d'état in Afghanistan on 27 April 1978. The resistance groups first opposed the Afghan communist regime, declaring it atheist. They then turned their attention to the Soviet Union when it invaded Afghanistan on 27 December 1979. Fighting the Soviet Red Army, they collectively referred to themselves as mujahidin waging jihad against a communist power occupying an Islamic land. The Afghan mujahidin were divided into two main groups: (1) those based in and backed by Pakistan with substantial financial and military assistance from Saudi Arabia and the United States, who mainly represented the Sunni majority; and (2) those based in and supported by Iran, representing the Shiite minority.

Guests featured in this episode:

Glossary:

What is the Taliban?

(00:47 or p.1 in the transcript)

What is Loya Jirga?

(9:13 or p.3 in the transcript)

Who are the Mujahideen?

(11:49 or p.3 in the transcript)

Previous Episode

Thomas Carothers on Democratic Backsliding in a Comparative Perspective

Guests featured in this episode:

Thomas Carothers, is the Harvey V Feinberg Chair for Democracy Studies and Co-director of the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Trained as a lawyer, he served in the office of the legal advisor of the U.S. State Department before joining The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He is an expert on democracy and international support for democracy promotion abroad for human rights, governance, the rule of law, and civil society. Tom has published several critically acclaimed books, including Funding Virtue: Civil Society and Democracy Promotion, Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad, and most recently Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization.

He's also been a visiting member at the CEU, and is a member of the advisory board of our Democracy Institute in Budapest.

GLOSSARY:

What are the United States midterm elections?

(02:27 or p.1 in the transcript)

United States midterm elections are general elections that occur every four years in the middle of the U.S. presidential term. The election process mandated by Article I of the United States Constitution, by which all members of the United States House of Representatives and roughly a third of the members of the U.S. Senate are on the ballot, occurs every two years. (Currently, the House of Representatives has 435 members, and the Senate has 100.) Midterm elections get their name because they occur halfway through a president’s four-year term. In addition to elections for members of Congress, 36 states hold their gubernatorial elections during the midterm cycle. Many local races and citizen-generated initiatives also can appear on midterm ballots. In general, fewer Americans vote in midterm elections than in presidential elections. Whereas about 60 percent of eligible voters typically cast ballots in presidential election years, that percentage falls to about 40 percent for midterms. (Voter turnout in the 2018 midterm elections was 50 percent, the highest since 1914. Turnout for the 2022 midterms was estimated at 47 percent.) source

What is the OECD?

(07:26 or p.3 in the transcript)

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, international organization founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. Member countries produce two-thirds of the world’s goods and services. The convention establishing the OECD was signed on Dec. 14, 1960, by 18 European countries, the United States, and Canada and went into effect on Sept. 30, 1961. It represented an extension of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), set up in 1948 to coordinate efforts in restoring Europe’s economy under the Marshall Plan. One of the fundamental purposes of the OECD is to achieve the highest possible economic growth and employment and a rising standard of living in member countries; at the same time, it emphasizes maintaining financial stability. The organization has attempted to reach this goal by liberalizing international trade and the movement of capital between countries. A further major goal is the coordination of economic aid to developing countries. Current OECD members are Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. source.

What was the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol?

(15:32 or p.5 in the transcript)

January 6 insurrection or January 6 U.S. Capitol attack was the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, by a mob of supporters of Republican Pres. Donald J. Trump. The attack disrupted a joint session of Congress convened to certify the results of the presidential election of 2020, which Trump had lost to his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. Because its object was to prevent a legitimate president-elect from assuming office, the attack was widely regarded as an insurrection or attempted coup d’état. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other law-enforcement agencies also considered it an act of domestic terrorism. For having given a speech before the attack in which he encouraged a large crowd of his supporters near the White House to march to the Capitol and violently resist Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory—which many in the crowd then did—Trump was impeached by the Democratic-led House of Repres...

Next Episode

Ronald Daniels on the Role of Universities in Strengthening Democracy

Guests featured in this episode:

Ronald Daniels, the President of Johns Hopkins University, as well as a board member of the Central European University. His numerous accomplishments include the Order of Canada awarded to him in 2016 and his election as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. During his tenure as President, Johns Hopkins University has consistently ranked at the top for its interdisciplinary research and innovation, enhanced student access, as well as community engagement. It thus serves as a true model for a research university in the 21st century.

Last year, Ron Daniels published an agenda-setting book, "What Universities Owe Democracy." It makes a compelling and a passionate case for universities to be engaged in preserving and strengthening democratic achievements that are under threat, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Glossary:

What is the Pell Grant program?
(11:34 or p.4 in the transcript)

The Pell Grant is a form of need-based federal financial aid awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to help eligible low-income students pay for college costs, including tuition, fees, room and board, and other educational expenses. The Pell Grant is the largest grant program offered by the Department of Education to undergraduate students. Created in 1972, the federal Pell Grant program has been awarding grants to students since the 1973-1974 school year. It was named after Sen. Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, the chief sponsor of the program. To be eligible, students must demonstrate exceptional financial need, be a U.S. citizen or eligible noncitizen and have not yet received a bachelor's, graduate or professional degree. While graduate students are not typically eligible for Pell Grant aid, in some cases students seeking a post-baccalaureate teacher certification may be eligible. The Pell Grant generally does not need to be repaid, but there are some exceptions, such as in case of withdrawing from courses or changing enrollment status after a Pell Grant award has been disbursed. Students may lose Pell Grant eligibility entirely if they withdraw from courses, do not maintain enrollment status or fail to continue making academic progress, which can include GPA requirements set by individual institutions. source

What is the K-12 education?
(14:43 or p.4 in the transcript)

The K-12 system stands for ‘from kindergarten to 12th grade’. This equates roughly to a school starting age of around five through to Grade 12 at around the age of 18. The system is broken down into three stages: elementary school (Grades K–5), middle school (Grades 6–8) and high school (Grades 9–12). In the United States, education is primarily the responsibility of state and local government. Every state has its own department of education and laws regarding finance, the hiring of school personnel, student attendance and curriculum. States also determine the number of years of compulsory education – in some states, education is only compulsory until the age of 16. In December 2015, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which pledged to offer the same standard of education to every child in the US “regardless of race, income, background, the zip code, or where they live”. The act replaced the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and, among other things, is an attempt to bring back some element of control with the recommendation for having fewer tests. source